Access granted

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Mimi Kenney Smith’s mother had her leg amputated before Smith — the oldest of 13 children — was born. Several of Smith’s aunts and uncles were blind or deaf and other relatives — all living in the area — were born with Down syndrome or autism.

Despite what her family faced, her childhood at 23rd and Lombard streets was no different than any other, she said.

Except for one thing.

"Our only problem was access," the now 58-year-old said, describing her relatives’ difficulty going to events and completing errands.

In 1999, Smith, along with husband Stephen Patrick Smith and Linda Merians, founded the Amaryllis Theatre Company.

Smith immediately began building partnerships throughout the artistic and disabled worlds — a practice that became all the more crucial when, three years later, Smith was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome having suffered from the viral infection of the nervous system at age 12.

"It’s funny because I sort of started my own support system," the Sharon Hill resident who uses crutches to get around said. "When I went back to work, people knew exactly what I was going through — they’d give me little tips about how to move through the world."

Later classified as VSA arts of Pennsylvania under the statewide VSA arts — a nonprofit working to help those with disabilities learn through, participate in and enjoy the arts — Smith is sponsoring the first "Independence Starts Here: A Festival of Disability Arts and Culture." During its Oct. 18 to Nov. 20 run, the festival will spread the word of accessibility awareness throughout the city while tapping into local artists.

"I have great memories of Philadelphia," she said, citing the restaurants she and her family still visit in the Italian Market. "I think I’ve always felt really comfortable in Philadelphia — it’s a warm, welcoming city and I’ve always trusted the people. I really never had any fears about getting people together and working together; I assumed that was always going to work."

The festival stems from an initiative of the same name Smith started in 2003 to connect the artistic and disabled communities through roundtable discussions that eventually evolved into this year’s festival.

"We’d talk about challenges," she said of the meetings. "The disabled community would say, ‘this is what keeps me from going,’ and the arts would explain, ‘this is what keeps me from providing accessibility,’ and we brought in national experts to help us come to a solution."

Since then, she said, many theaters and venues have adapted to their audiences by offering captioning for the deaf and hard of hearing, and audio descriptions for the blind and visually impaired.

The upcoming festival features art influenced or informed by the experience of disability by artists with and without disabilities. Smith and Michael Norris, executive director of Art-Reach — a nonprofit that helps underserved audiences experience arts and cultural programming — chose the time and format to coincide with a Nov. 20 dedication of "Independence Starts Here," a mural at Broad and Race streets that will honor people with disabilities, and to let the community experience multiple events over the month.

"It’s an unusual model," Norris said of the scope. "We think that it’s good that there’s so much stuff that we couldn’t fit it all into one week or 10 days — there’s not a lot of overlap."

In conjunction with a VIP reception at the Kimmel Center for the Performing Arts at Broad and Spruce streets Oct. 18, the festival kicks off with the world premiere of the ballet "Helen Keller" by the Rebecca Davis Dance Company, 1802 S. Broad St. Davis said the blind and deaf woman whose life has been told in books and films, including 1962’s "The Miracle Worker," inspired her to tell a story in a format she’s never seen before.

"The production was inspired by my choreographic search of telling a story about a woman overcoming her obstacles to impact the world," she said. "Helen Keller is a really perfect example of that. One of the best ways to tell her story, and one of the ways she communicated, was through movement." Davis will incorporate 20 dancers — 14 professionals and six students from the company — to portray Keller’s life until the death of her teacher, Anne Sullivan.

Davis started choreographing in May ’06 when she told Smith and Norris of her idea, and dancers were brought in last month for rehearsals.

Davis visited the Overbrook School for the Blind and traveled to Helen Keller’s home in Tuscumbia, Ala., to get a better understanding of her subject, along with studying documentation of Keller’s life.

"By reading and watching her environment, I could see how she moved. That’s infused through choreography that’s taught to the dancers who all read a synopsis called a libretto, which is a screenplay for ballet. This will help the cast portray Keller’s life as true to history as possible," Davis said, adding the dancer playing her will not be blind or deaf.

"Her movement shows a lot of the kind of emotional range this individual went through — from moments of uncontrolled thrashing behavior, to quiet subdued behavior," she said.

Davis said to her knowledge this is the first ballet about Keller’s life, and she hopes those coming to see the show — Nov. 2 and 3 at the Prince Music Theatre, 1412 Chestnut St. — will get the same values she got while putting it together.

"So many days I wake up and I take things for granted," Davis said. "When you think, ‘this didn’t work out perfectly,’ you feel your life is difficult. When I think about Helen Keller, not only did she overcome obstacles, she’s motivated me and my life to think, ‘how can I overcome obstacles and achieve?’"

Audio description services will be available, as will assisted listening and braille or large print programs.

Days later, another local artistic outlet will be showcased with a staged reading at The Playground at the Adrienne, 2030 Sansom St., Nov. 5. Amaryllis and Straw Flower Productions, 2530 S. 18th St., will present "Hamster in the Jungle," written by disability rights activist Mike Ervin.

The plot follows Gilbert, a quadriplegic who spends his days daydreaming of a way to get out of his residential nursing home. "Hamster" director Jackie Ruggiero Jacobson of the 2500 block of South 18th Street said she attended an Independence Starts Here meeting in the spring, and when presented with the opportunity to produce and perform another "underexposed play" — the mission of Straw Flower — she was eager to participate.

The four-character play — including two with disabilities — will be cast by mid-October and Jacobson said they would like to keep the roles authentic.

"It is important for the festival because it’s about giving exposure, and we’re going to do whatever we can to make that happen," Jacobson said of casting actors in similar circumstances. "We will look for artists to fill those two particular roles that way."

The company that regularly stages full-fledge productions saw the cause too important to pass up.

"We had the opportunity to give this particular play more exposure, let people know it exists," she said, adding the cast would rehearse for about 10 hours and the performance has no props or costumes. "The whole purpose of the festival is to give voice to the many artists that happen to have disabilities. We want to do everything we can to make it about them — not just our company — and that’s why we’re taking part in the festival."

There are no plans to make the festival annual, but Norris is looking to the future.

"A great way to follow up would be to it do again in 2010 — the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disability Act," he said.

Although neither Norris nor Smith feel Philadelphia specifically shuts out the disabled community, both reiterated the importance of bringing awareness to something that touches so many lives.

"Really if you think about the disabled community being a significant part of the population, as our population ages, we’re all faced with the possibility of being someone who has a disability," Norris said. "It’s important that the cultural community embraces the disabled community either as performers or audiences because it’s a large segment of the population."

"If you include everybody, you’re a better community," Smith added. "All those different experiences and viewpoints need variety and diversity and when you’re not accessible, you’re excluding a lot of people."